The vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) is a pre-configured Linux-based virtual machine optimized for running vCenter Server and associated services. Versions 5.0.1 and 5.1 of the vCSA uses PostgreSQL for the embedded database instead of IBM DB2, which was used in vCenter Server Appliance 5.0.
The vCSA embedded postSQL DB supports 5 hosts / 50 virtual machines, with an Oracle DB the vCSA can support 1000 hosts and 10,000 vms. If you configure your vCSA to use an external instance of Single Sign On (SSO), the external SSO instance must be hosted on another vCenter Server Appliance; it cannot be hosted on a Windows machine.

vCenter Server can be installed on a windows Guest OS and can be connected to Oracle or Microsoft SQL. SSO can be installed on the same Guest OS or can be on a different machine. It should be noted that patching of of the vCenter Appliance is not supported.

Below is a table listing more of the differences between the products.
Source

Can be installed on vCenter Server or separate server and configured using plug-in.

Pre-installed and does not have plug-in.

ESXi Dump collector

Can be installed on vCenter Server or on a separate Guest OS.

Pre-installed and does not have plug-in.

Multi-site SSO

Supported

Not Supported. Basic SSO only.

VSA (vSphere Storage Appliance

Supported

Not Supported

VMware View

Supported

Not Supported

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More information :
VMware Product pageRequirements</b>
* ESXi 5.1 Host Up and Running
* vSphere Client on your workstation (It can be downloaded from http://)
* vCSA *.OVA file (Download from VMware)
Deploying vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA)</b>
The following procedure will cover a basic/generic install of VMware vCenter Server Appliance. This is to be used as a template, in lab or POC only.
1 - Open your VMware vSphere Client and Navigate to File/Deploy OVF Template.
2 - Browse to the location of the vCenter Server Appliance .ovf file and clickOpen. Click Next.

3 - Verify the OVF Template details and click Next.
4 - Specify a name and location for the deployed template. Here I use "vCenter01". Click Next.
5 - Specify the destination storage where the Virtual Machine files will be located. Click Next.
6 - Choose the Storage format for your virtual disks. Click Next.
7 - Provide a Network PortGroup and finally Validate the deployment settings and click Finish.
8 - The deployment of the appliance should only take a couple of minutes...
Configuring vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA)</b>
1 - After Starting the vCenter Appliance VM you will get to the following screen.
Notice the message "No Networking Detected". Select Login(at the bottom left) and press Enter.
2 -Login as root, the default password is vmware

3 - Enter the following path/opt/vmware/share/vami/vami_config_net and press Enter.

4 - Now that you have successfully deployed the vCenter Server appliance you can check out the vCenter Web Client using the following URL https://<IP address/DNS of vCenter>:9443/vsphere-client/

5 - Accept the EULA Terms. Click Next.

6 - Select "Configure with default settings" and click Next.

7 - Verify the Databases information and click Start.

8 - The initialization should take a few minutes.

9 - Once completed, you'll see the following screen. Database, Single Sign-On (SSO) and Vcenter Server have been configured successfully. Click Close.

10 - You now have a vCenter Server Appliance Up and Running.Accessing vCenter WebClient</b>
Open a Web browser and enter the URL for the vSphere Web Client: https://<IP/DNS of the vCenter Server>:port/vsphere-client . By default the port is 9443, but this can be changed during vSphere Web Client installation. Click Login. If a warning message about an untrusted SSL certificate appears, select the appropriate action based on your security policy.
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